Another Brilliant Weekend June 29, 2008

Friday was fantastic…it marked my last day in the paint shop at school, ever, and although I feel tied to that place and will miss it, I’m ready to move on.  Friday night, Anchors, Matty and I went to try and see Get Smart.  Steve Carrell is funny and I can tolerate Anne Hathaway, mostly.  Get Smart was sold out, and the next closest movie time was for Kung Fu Panda.  Now, I love Jack Black.  However, I never would have spent the movie and seen that movie if I weren’t already at the theater.  I am glad for this happy accident.  Kung Fu Panda kinda rocked.  The three of us were the only group without children in the theater, that was interesting, but we all laughed our faces off (spurred on by a three year old in the row in front of us, who would laugh whenever we did, which just made me laugh harder).  I approve of Kung Fu Panda.  I might even go so far as to say I recommend it.  

Saturday, I woke up, had lunch with Anchors and my roommate, and then started the tedious process of packing the studio.  I officially want to Poke My Eyes Out.  I hate moving, the physical act.  It fucking sucks.  It’s hot and sweaty and dusty and nostalgic and I’m tired of it already when I’ve hardly begun.  Soooo, to make things better, a group of us went down the hill to the bar at about 7:30, and by 11:00, we were at the titty bar up the road from school.  I, myself, had never been to a strip club before.  How did I make it to almost-30 without going to a strip club?  Friends, you may have failed me.  Better late than never, though…better late than never.  I was pleasantly surprised that there was nary a fake boob in sight, and the woman who was the headliner for the evening was the plumpest of the bunch.  There were only a handful of skinny girls, and the rest were just…normal.  A few would have even been considered overweight from a medical stand point, but mostly, they were all hot.  Except for the headliner.  She liked Anchors, though.  Didn’t even want her money after she rubbed her head in her crotch… Giggety giggety.  

Today, I woke up with a bit of a hangover, and promptly engaged in the best cure known to man: lazy river tubing!!  It was pretty perfect.  We were running late, as usual, and the people running the shuttles were not happy with us, and then it looked like it would storm, but we had perfect timing, in the end.  The rain didn’t start until ten minutes after we’d gotten out of the river, and we arrived just in time to catch the shuttle back to our cars.  Idyllic, really.  I love tubing more than most things in this world.  Really, I do.  

Tonight, I’m having dinner with a few friends, and then I’m finishing up work on all the puppets for the Pied Piper.  These past few weeks, ever since graduation really, I can’t shake the feeling that my life is charmed, that I am so lucky to get to do what I do, with the people I do it with, and that I ought to give thanks each and every day that somehow, this life is working out in a most spectacular, unconventional, magicalmystical way.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  

Is this what happiness feels like?  Boundless gratitude for simply existing?  

Oh, and Amanda…that old post, your memories through someone else’s words, I didn’t ever imagine you’d read those words.  I hope you know I meant you no ill will.  Quite the opposite, in fact…

Wha…? Wha Happened? June 13, 2008

Life is moving at a breakneck speed.  I can hardly begin to process everything that has happened in the past two weeks.  Actually, one might say I am avoiding processing all that has happened in the last two weeks.  Cleaning My Life Out has been a terribly occupying chore, one I can fully immerse myself in.  At least the fidgeting stops when I’m cleaning.  Because, here’s the thing:  I have been forced to maintain a nearly impossible momentum for such a sustained period of time, that now that I have down time, I feel like I’m being irresponsible and I can’t fully relax because my brain is so damn sure that there’s something else I ought to be doing.  It’s sick.  The after-effects of brain-washing?  Perhaps.  The training was effective, regardless of my comfort level…I have to produce.  It’s become a basic need just like eating and sleeping (which I have, thankfully, been doing quite a bit of…).  I’m happy that work starts next Monday, knowing good and well how hot that paint shop is, and that I will be back to last summer’s practice of drinking 8 gallons of water a day, and peeing once.  Hot.  Like an inferno.  Like I’m standing too close to a volcano.  Like I might vomit.  But hey, at least I’ll have a routine, and my paint muscles won’t lose their memory.  

So, I’m a college graduate.  Hallejulah, I never thought I’d see the day.  I really didn’t.  I had kinda convinced myself that I wouldn’t (couldn’t) go to college because of the hilarious debacle that was high school.  Because of that, those years of such certainty that “school wasn’t for me”, there is a surreal element to this whole Graduation Thing.  Of course, it becomes more real by the day as I watch my friends and peers trickle away to pursue their interesting, lucrative lives as artists.  It’s an exciting time; the whole world feels like it’s opening up around me, but there is a lonely sensation involved, too…akin to what it feels like to go parasailing; it’s so much fun that it makes you high, but you’re alone, watching things from afar, and there’s no sound except the winds in your ears.  The big difference between my life and parasailing is that there’s no rope, I’m not tethered to the speeding boat guiding my path, and that makes me feel a bit vulnerable to simply f l o a t i n g away.  

Mind you, there are some solid anchors to keep me from going adrift…I have overhire work lined up for as soon as I get to The City, and there are some exciting possibilities on the horizon for later in the year.  I have a roommate.  I have an incredibly large (and growing every day!) network of friends in NY, so I won’t be lonely.  I don’t think I’ll feel like a lost lamb without a friend in the world.  There’s that, at least.  I mean, I know I’ll do fine for myself in New York City…there’s lots of work, there’s lots of friends, I’ll probably make decent money right from the get-go…but I’m nervous, you know?  It’s a Big Move.  It’s not just A City, it’s The City. I never wanted it for myself, never really envisioned it for myself, and I think that attitude is going to either really benefit me, or really hinder me.  I should have a clear answer on which it is in fairly short order.  I have a sneaking suspicion I’m going to love it.  The only thing to do is hope that I’m right.  

Plus, I won’t hate living in the same city as FireBall, again.  It has been surprisingly difficult, her living in a different state.  She’s still standing strong on the line that she’s scared of feelings, and therefore can’t really be in a relationship, and it’s almost laughable at this point; it’s clear that feelings are already involved, as we can’t manage to go a day without talking to one another for at least a few minutes, to supplement the texting, emailing, chatting.  I want to yell at the heavens, Come Onnnnnnn!  We’re already doin’ This Thing, so lets call a spade a spade and get on with the amazing times!  I am trying to remember that we’re already having amazing times, and that maybe that should be enough, but that’s hardly my nature.  She’s just so good, even in her only-human imperfections and neuroses, she’s so…real.  Not to mention charming, and incredibly motivated, and intelligent, and successful…there’s all that, too.  She feels so far away right now; in her words, “…might as well be Lebanon…”, and I can’t help but count the days until I see her again (8).  Her best friend’s wedding could be a perfectly magical time for everyone involved.  

I fall in love too easily.  And she’s just so loveable…

I talked to JJJ for the first time in a month, a couple of nights ago.  It was emotionally draining, and exactly what we both needed to put some closure on our relationship.  It never got angry, which happily surprised me, but it wasn’t easy explaining myself, telling her all the things I had avoided saying because I didn’t want her to hurt.  She begged me to tell her everything, all of it, and so I did, sometimes against my better judgement.  She cried a lot, I cried a little, both of us were pretty anguished, and I almost wanted to confess to making a terrible mistake, and please could she come see me so we could straighten this all out?  but I knew that was only a fleeting impulse, the memories of comfort and consolations found in one another’s arms in days past; not what I need or want, but something I used to work so hard at protecting and nurturing, and it has slipped away.  For better or for worse, the departure hurts.  I made this decision, and still the vacant pain at hearing her cry makes me doubt myself, and leaves me wondering if I will ever get any better at Being In A Relationship.  It’s hard to stick to my guns when I feel t h i s lonely.  JJJ is not the one I’m lonely for, but she is the one telling me that she wants (wanted) to give me everything because she loves me more than anything, and sometimes it’s easy to confuse wanting someone in general for wanting someone in specific.  I am working to remember the difference, every day.  To do anything else would be unfair to her, and I can’t go down that path anymore, ever again. 

Life is crazy, people.  Cray-zee.  Every day that I realize people are going to pay me to paint from now on, I feel like I hood-winked somebody, like I’m pulling a fast one.  This life is crazy and confusing, but I think it is charmed.  

Also, congratulations to my beautiful friend S, and her lovely husband D, for producing the most darling, precious, dazzling little boy, J.  Welcome to the world, J…you lucked out in the family department.  You’ll be thankful for that in 20 years.  I can’t wait to meet him!!

20 hours but who’s counting… May 30, 2008

In approximately 20 hours a lot of things will be happening, such as:

–my entire family will be in the same place, at the same time, for the first time in history (my aunt on my mom’s side has never even met my brother).  This is awesome, and more than a little nerve-wracking.  

–I will be an alumni of This Crazy School.  

–FireBall will be driving through Maryland (roughly), in a truck she and I packed in sweaty silence this afternoon.  There aren’t lots of words when two people are looking to Avoid The Inevitable like we are.  Consolation prize: her best friends here are getting married in three weeks, and after hanging out with these friends last night and having a reeeeally good time, they’ve asked me to come to their wedding…which is amazing because I will get to see FireBall sooner than either of us anticipated (it was precious how happy she was that I could actually make it), and I will have the hottest date at the wedding.  

–Lastly, I will be a fierce hot mess immediately following graduation, I’m guessing like how I carried on when I had to leave a really good session of summer camp at age 12.  I will be wearing waterproof mascara tomorrow.  Fierce. Hot. Mess.  

Then…six days at the Outer Banks, followed by a long weekend in Philly with A and D (kickin’ it old school, y’all), and then five more free days before my job starts.  I can’t wait.  It’s going to be a really good two and a half weeks, except for the fact that I’m going to be missing some people so bad I can hardly stand it.  Boo on goodbyes.  

I feel crazy…like my brain is a fruit salad, instead of gray matter.  I’m going to go fly a kite and enjoy this sensation of accomplishment and terror.  At least it’s a unique feeling.  

Well, that’s finished. May 23, 2008

I had my last art class today, turned in my last final project, cleaned up the paint shop one. last. time.  I feel a little crazy, in the most manic Highest Highs and this other feeling that I can’t quite pinpoint.  Maybe mourning?  I get hit with these waves of brief-but-intense emotions that I can’t even properly identify, and I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry or to hit my head on a wall until I drift off into a sweet, vacant sleep.  

I didn’t know what to do with myself after my class ended this afternoon.  We had just spent three hours eating popsicles and chatting and smoking cigarettes and looking at the other class’s translucency finals, and then there was nothing else for me to do in the paint shop.  That’s never happened before; it was a bizarre sensation.  Granted, I’ll be working there for three weeks over the summer and I’ll have p l e n t y to do, but I’ll get paid for that, and somehow that makes a difference.  That 7,000 square feet of big, colorful, cluttered, controlled chaos has been my home away from home for three years now.  I’m really gonna miss it.  I walked into HoJo’s office at the end of class, and said, Thanks for teaching me so much cool stuff.  I’m out of your hair now.  He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and just mumbled, Come give me a kiss, and I could tell he was feeling the same tight squeeze in his lungs that I was feeling, too.  I never knew what it might mean to me to really, truly have a mentored student/teacher relationship; I see why Plato wrote books about it.  It can be a true and powerful love, based on knowledge and respect and then friendship.  Although, I guess I should have seen it coming a mile away that (Of Course) myself and the Bitchy Old Queen would grow to love each other like we do.  His absence in my daily life will be sorely felt.  

Speaking of absences being sorely felt…P (whose blog-name is FireBall from now on) leaves in a week.  Eight days, to be exact.  I am little saddened by this.  She seems a little saddened by this, too.  I can’t tell what’s going on between us right now…  To the untrained eye, it would appear that we are dating.  To me, it feels like we are dating.  I mean, for the most part, it’s just the two of us spending time together alone, and if we don’t see each other every day, we have at least an hour or two of text-based conversations.  We are both women that have a history of sleeping with other women.  Both of us always put perfume on riiiiight before we see each other (I wonder if she’s noticed, too), and yet still, not even a kiss.  I can’t figure it out.  She looked so good today, dressed up in the sauciest-yet-totally-tasteful Business Casual I ever did see, and I wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked, but we were in a small, tight room with lots of her peers and our instructors swarming everywhere…unfortunately inappropriate in that moment.  It would be nice to be able to stop turning this over and over in my brain.  There’s only one week left til she leaves.  She’s got a lot to do.  I’ve got a few things to do.  It’s bad timing.  Dammit all to hell, it’s bad timing. I suppose I’m just scared that if the moment passes, it might slip away before we even get a chance to see if it’s as amazing as I think it could be.  I think maybe she’s scared…or maybe now that we’ve gotten to know each other better, I’m not the person she thought I was…I just can’t tell.  And I don’t know how to ask.  

On a completely unrelated topic, we saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night.  Don’t waste your money.  I thought it was awful.  I woke up this morning, still angry at Steven Speilberg.  Harrison Ford is clearly a rusty actor (and he’s had some weird plastic surgery), Kate Blanchett couldn’t even manage a believable character, and the choices that were made where CGI is concerned were heinous and totally opposite of the spirit of the original movies.  I believed Indy was about to get smushed into the cliff by the tank because a double was really hanging off the side of a tank, gouging into a canyon wall somewhere in Egypt, on set for Last Crusade.  The giant stone ball that chases him down the corridor in Raiders of the Lost Ark, that was appealing because that ball was really chasing him.  Sure, it was a movie set, probably in a sound stage in Burbank, CA, but I believed it was a lost treasure cave in The Amazon.  The gritty realism has vanished.  All I have to say is: George Lucas, you can take your CG monkeys and shove ‘em where the sun don’t shine.  If you see the movie, you’ll know the monkeys I speak of.  I can’t believe the ending, either…I mean, really!  Anyone that knows Indiana Jones knows that  t h a t  would never happen. Boo.  Such a let down.  

 

 

Eff. May 21, 2008

I just had the most amazing, spontaneous date of my whole life.  Without going into details, I would just like to state for the record (and amusement purposes of others) that steel wool is flammable, and makes for the cheapest, longest lasting sparklers a person could hope for.  She shook her head at me, laughing, and called me a First World Citizen as she held the lighter to the steel wool, running and swinging the sparking steel in wide arcs that split the dark blue night.  The sparks hurt when they landed on my skin, but it was brief; the Wonder Factor is high with this trick, and I quickly forgot to flinch. You have to keep moving.  You have to keep spinning.   

Yeah, tell me about it.  

Frizzy Hair and Frazzled Nerves May 17, 2008

It’s Friday again.  How did that happen??  Seriously!?!  Time is funny…I wish I could articulate how much time amuses and tortures me, but I don’t think I can do that right now.  All I can do is hang on and lean into the curves.  

My to-do list is still daunting, but it’s getting pretty short.  The light at the end of the tunnel is starting to feel warm.  I still don’t know what I’m gonna do.  I feel unsettled that I don’t have a job, but it’s a bit too early still to start looking for jobs in August…I mean, I’m doing research, but so many of the job postings are for fairly immediate positions, and that just doesn’t work for me right now.  Stupid lease.  

Actually, I’m happy I have to stay here for the summer.  I have 30 years of living in this state to package up, not to mention the time I need to thoroughly enjoy one more Hot Southern Summer.  I don’t want to live my life always in a hurry to get to the next step…I’m trying really hard to appreciate the present.  Life is fleeting, after all.  

To date, I have lost 75 pounds.  It’s kinda crazy.  For the first time in my adult life, I purchased a dress that not only looks super cute on me, but I actually feel confident wearing it.  The dress creates the illusion that I have a (gasp!) waistline.  I kid, but it makes me really happy.  I weigh less than I did when I graduated high school.  I like that.  I went to my doctor last week for another saline fill, and he opted not to do the procedure (glory) because he feels I may be in the fabled Green Zone.  I have definitely figured out that there are certain foods I Just Can’t Eat Anymore, and that has been painful.  The list includes some favorites, such as: steak, pork chops, brocolli, rice, bread (unless it’s super cripsy), collard greens, apples, and…sigh…cheese.  I still try occasionally to enjoy these things, and it’s always fairly uncomfortable, and I’ll hold off for three weeks or a month, until the craving makes me forget what it actually feels like to try and digest the tasty treat.   I have lost my appetite, in general.  That’s truly the biggest problem I’m facing, five months post-surgery…I am forgetting to eat for long periods of time.  For example, I totally cracked under the pressure of the union exam, and couldn’t figure out why I was So Fatigued two and a half hours in, and getting shaky and edgy and emotional.  And then I realized I hadn’t eaten in about 20 hours.  Granted, my lack of appetite is exaggerated right now by extreme stress levels and the fact that I may or may not be falling in love, but christ! That’s not healthy.  I just don’t think to eat very often, because I so rarely feel hunger…and on the flipside, when I do eat, it’s not really satisfying, somehow.  I can still eat some good meals, but my passion for food has definitely waned a great deal.  Living on nuts and chicken pieces and greens is fine, but it’s not a culinary adventure.  It’s a small sacrifice, really.  I’m not complaining.  

I am feeling very conflicted these days.  There is so much going on at all times, in every single arena of my life, I am having a hard time keeping up, or knowing that I’m making the right decisions.  It’s so important to me to start Living Right, to create my own destiny and do it in a healthy, happy, productive, contributing fashion…but that takes so much thought.  Such careful, calculated planning.  Such thoughtful use of time and resources.  I am so much more impulsive than that, by nature…

P leaves so soon.  We are both so busy that we are not able to find the time we are both craving to spend together.  It’s really very difficult to have an unstoppable urge to share (for lack of a better word) with someone, so constantly, and simply not be able to find the time.  Recognizing that, of course!, it’s the right thing to do, at this time, to take a step back and focus on Finishing School.  There’s so much on the line right now, for both of us.  Making the correct, adult decision to take it slow, and not allow ourselves to get consumed when we can hardly spare the time…it’s hard and it feels gross Right This Minute and I want to see her so bad I can hardly stand it…but the timing is wrong.  We will have the Fall and beyond to have adventures, but that seems so far away, it will be cold then, and I want to play in the sunshine in her big backyard and drink the traditional summer drink of her Latin American upbringing and show her how to eat honeysuckle and just get lost in the amazing conversations we have.  No offense to all the really wonderful people that I dearly love who read this blog, but I am realizing, I think, that P is the coolest, most intriguing, interesting, diverse and spirited person that I’ve ever met.  The stories she tells me about her childhood and her home and her dreams inspire me and move me in ways I have never understood before.  

She just called me as I was typing this.  I guess I was thinking about her too loudly.  One of her classmates is getting married soon, and she’s in the wedding, and there have been all these parties and tastings and fittings and she literally doesn’t have a single day that isn’t booked full, before she departs.  Sad face.  My schedule is a bit more lax, and I almost wish it wasn’t.  It’d be easier if I was more distracted.  I take comfort in the small presents she leaves me in my school mailbox, and the hundreds of texts we’ve been sending (I finally got myself a chat account set up on the internets, because neither of us can afford to maintain a habit like we’ve established), and the fact that now, since we’ve been spending time together, she has begun researching ways to stay in the US after she graduates next year.  I don’t want to get my hopes up, or get too attached…there are a lot of complicated variables at play…visas and residency and taxes and all the paperwork that comes along with being here for her…there’s just no telling where this thing is gonna go.  That’s fine, that’s wonderful, really…part of the adventure…but I’m kicking myself constantly for not getting close to her until now.  And I’ve always had such good timing, up til now…

 

Yesterday was good, at least. May 15, 2008

OK.  Now that there are only sixteen days left until I am officially College Educated, now I’m freaking out. Tomorrow, in the second to last scene painting class of my life (unless I decide to go to grad school at Yale…not likely.), I have to take the exam to get into the union.  Mind you, this is a fake union test, so I don’t have to pay the 3K, and I only get four hours, instead of eight, to paint a 4′ x 8′ flat in a highly complicated land/sea/sky landscape, framed with a dimensional wood moulding (mahogany), complete with striped drapery hanging down over the wood moulding.  I’m nervous.  It’s not that I feel like I don’t have the talent to do this, its that any human might want to vomit blood at the thought of painting a mural at a frenzied pace for four solid hours, while an old queen sits behind on a chair with a clip board and the collar of his polo shirt popped, noting every move you make, every stroke you put down.  It’s nerve-wracking. However, this is the last test I have to endure of my entire scenic painting career at this place, and I have been waiting for this day for three years, knowing, for better or for worse, that it signifies a passing.  

I turned in my first final today, that felt good.  First Last Final exam.  Bizarre.  Where did these four years go?  I didn’t learn enough!?!  All of a sudden, I find myself asking questions like, “If someone asked me to create a cityscape in three point perspective, would I know how to calculate the multiple vanishing points?”  The answer is no, and that’s why there are books to tell you things like that, but somehow I wind up feeling guilty that I didn’t retain that equation.  I’m ready.  I’m not ready.  I’m so ready.  What the hell am I gonna do now?  

Grad school? I’d be awesome at restoration!  

Or maybe this job I just applied for is actually a job-in for Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock, coming soon to Broadway.  The time frames do line up…

I think I am having an existential crisis.  Last year, I would have punched myself in the face if I heard that sentence pass my lips.  I think maybe that’s because I didn’t really know what it meant?  Or maybe because I had no frame of reference in my own life, never having waded through existential matters…maybe because I’m just At That Age.  Whatever the case may be, I might be happy, but I am  c r a c k i n g  under the pressure that the two weeks in front of me are about to exert.  This sensation is new to me…complete, abject terror as I think of student loan payments, and shiny, light-hearted optimism at the interesting way my life seems to be shaping up.  Someone (like, oh…say, a shrink) could maybe see that as manic, and I won’t lie…I kinda feel like I’m digging in for traction in the middle of an euphoric cyclone.  Cuckoo.  

Change is good.  But what the hell am I supposed to do with a sudden, nagging need to find the meaning in what I create?  The message is the medium? How can I create a style that’s identifiable and somehow fresh? Shit like that.  Good thoughts, but really?!? brain, right now?!? This can’t wait two weeks?!?  

Side note: the new Gnarls Barkley album, The Odd Couple, is my favorite new jam of 2008.  The album is a bit less aggressive than their last (St. Elsewhere), but also a bit less diverse.  That being said, I have not been able to get the songs out of my head for the last week, solid.  It’s great.  The lyrics are intelligent and sweet, the beats are infectious, and Blind Mary will make you dance…try it and see what happens.  

 

Don’t Be Surprised… May 12, 2008

I have held off on writing a post–a real post–for quite a while now.  All the things I have inside of me that I would normally purge into this bizarre, real but not real world of the blog-o-sphere, I have had to contain for months now, not having had the gumption until recently to right a serious wrong, and not wanting to spill the beans in such an impersonal, public forum.  Of course, I have no idea who reads this, or how often, so it could have all been for nought…I may have bottled things up for months with no real reason to do so.  JJJ never was very technically savvy or tuned in…

So, here’s the official scoop:  I had the most amazing moment of clarity while running lunchtime errands about a week and a half ago.  I could see everything so perfectly clear, all of a sudden.  I was left wondering how I had managed to keep my blinders up for so long, afterwards, driving to the post office, having to turn my car around over and over, as I kept missing my turn.  My mind races constantly, but it doesn’t usually race in such a precise, articulate manner, and I suppose this change of nature is what made me listen so closely.  And here’s what my brain told me, in no uncertain terms.  

1.  Los Angeles is a poor career choice at this precise time. I do believe it is still in the cards for me, some time in the future, but I would be sacrificing a very broad, very functional network that I have been building for five years now, and to move to L.A. would mean I would have to start from scratch.  Not necessarily a deal breaker, but combined with the fact that my brain also told me that…

2. JJJ and I had entered into a toxic cycle of unhealthy, unstable non-relationship relationship.  We weren’t together, but I certainly didn’t feel single, either.  We kept up with each other most every day, and there were expectations and obligations that friends don’t have for one another.  And that was okay for a while.  I guess it made me feel less alone, or maybe I had convinced myself that it would work itself out in time.  Except this one afternoon, driving a stack of graduation announcements to the Big Blue Box, I realized I wasn’t in love with her, not at all, and I hadn’t been for a while.  I wasn’t aware that I could fool myself for so long, let alone draw someone else into the lengthy falsity with me.  I feel terrible for flipping on a dime, but there’s no going back from it, and I broke it off with her.  It didn’t end well.  She hates me.  I doubt we will even be friends, somewhere down the line.  She told me never to contact her again, and I have to respect that.  It’s okay with me, really, because I don’t miss her.  That makes me feel cold inside.  It makes me feel like a liar and a bitch, but I never said an untrue thing to her; I meant everything I ever said, in the moment I spoke it.  I don’t know that that accounts for much, but it’s true nonetheless.  This entire scenario is compounded by the fact that I…

3.  Met someone else.  She’s amazing.  She blows my mind every time we talk.  It’s as though someone has crawled into my brain, and they’re throwing their voice from her mouth.  She’s close to my age, (actually even a year and a half older!!) and I hadn’t realized how lonesome I was for someone that could understand what it feels like to be a woman on the verge…on the verge of a career, on the verge of middle age, on the verge of fucking losing it at this school…the understanding we share is a powerful narcotic, an aphrodisiac.  She makes me laugh, she shares my values and my dreams, she’s so honest it amazes me, and my god is she hot.  It’s as if she was designed with my needs and wants in mind, so perfectly…physically, emotionally, intellectually…it’s all there.  Oh, and she moves out of the state in 18 days.  So. Effing. Typical.  I met her at the end of last summer.  I was attracted to her immediately.  I was trying to be a good girl with a girlfriend.  She gave me her number.  I missed the signals.  I never called.  I was an idiot.  I wasted so much time on a dead-end situation, when there was this amazing thing waiting for me, and all I had to was pick up the phone.  She told me a few days ago that I was a fool to wait so long to call her.  I have to agree, and it only makes me want her that much more that she will actually challenge me and hold me accountable.  I need that.  The really important moral of all this, aside from my ramblings about how much I like her, is that she served an invaluable function as A Point Of Perspective.  I had forgotten that I didn’t need to settle, that JJJ’s 50% good would never balance out the 50% bad, and that there are actually people in the world that contain ALL of the qualities I find so necessary, so attractive in a relationship.  Mind you, P and I are not in a physical relationship (yet)…I had to conclude things with JJJ, and P is more than a little uncomfortable with entering into something that will clearly be the opposite of casual, what with only 18 days left to go.  But that being said, we are definitely engaging in some kind of relationship…we’ve been going on the cutest, most fun dates ever, nearly every day, and we just can’t stop talking to one another, from the time we’re both awake, until one of us finally cuts it off at bedtime.  It’s fulfilling in an entirely different way from anything I’ve ever entered into, and that gives me hope…except for the terrible timing.  Dammit.  Also, English is her second language, and it simply couldn’t be hotter when she speaks to me in Spanish.  I’ve always been a sucker for accents.  I’m just amazed at how quickly I’m falling for her, when we have been taking pains not to get physical…and painful it is, lemme tell ya.  It’s hard not to be as close to her physically as we are emotionally.  It’s torture, actually.  

In summation, I graduate in 18 days (yep, on the same day that P leaves for NYC), I am rapidly falling in love with someone that has the potential to be good for me (finally!), and I’m moving to NYC when my lease is up in August.  I found the job of my dreams at a decorative painting studio as a conservation/restoration technician in Manhattan (I haven’t gotten it yet, but I’m gonna be positive…), I already have a roommate lined up for the move (a 3rd year grad costume design student that I adore) and I’ve never been happier, or felt lighter at heart than I do Right This Second.  

So there’s that.  

Dollywood!!! May 2, 2008

As a student at an art school, I have embraced the unconventional.  This includes, but is no means limited to, the fact that our Senior Trip is taking us to Dollywood.  Six of us are piling into a big white van, and driving to Tennessee, to stay in a friend’s mom’s cabin (with two, count them TWO, hot tubs!) and seven bedrooms for six of us.  I couldn’t sleep last night for the anticipation.  

I know that must sound crazy, but Dollywood has always been a legend in my mind, a place I’ve always needed to see to convince myself of the reality.  This might sound bizarre, but it’s a bit of a dream come true that I finally get to visit (for free, luckily!).  It feels like a pilgrimage of sorts…which is kinda crazy, because I love Dolly Parton but her music isn’t exactly my jam.  I’m in it for the 9 to 5 Rhinestone Cowboy.  She won’t be there this weekend, but I will still enjoy the water ride.  

AND, to really make my day, we are stopping in Asheville for dinner.  I will spend the entire two hoursin the car trying to figure out what the best place to eat is, only to have TazerLaser complain that there aren’t enough meat and potatoes on the menu.  The man doesn’t eat a single green thing.  Not one.  Additionally, no bread, no cheese, and no sauces aside from ketchup or barbeque.  He lives on hamburger patties, no bun, and french fries or mashed potatoes.  Seriously.  It pisses me off that he’s skinny.  Where am I supposed to take him???  I want Jerusalem Garden, or Lucky Otter, or Sunny Pointe, or maybe even Doc Cheys.  He wants Wendys.  Oh, TL.  

And the weekend begins…  I can’t wait to see what kind of shenanigans I can catch on film for blackmail and entertainment purposes later.  

38 Days, But Whose Counting? April 22, 2008

Graduation has crept up on me.  I only have four Mondays left to go at this place, and then I’m free, paper in hand, to go out and make good use of the skills they’ve ground, beaten, stamped into me.  I have every confidence that I’m going to have a long, happy, lucrative career, but this Graduation Thing, it just…snuck up when I wasn’t looking closely.  All the studying and the planning and the practice have led to this moment, and perhaps I’m just struggling with how to handle success after years of figuring out how to handle failure.  One is just as scary as the other, I’m quickly realizing.  

Of course, hand in hand with the fear of What I’m Going To Do Next, With Who, And Where, is an overwhelming sense of elation at the accomplishment of managing to survive it all, let alone painting 28 shows in the process, and learning lots of fantastically unique and interesting skills along the way.  I am happy that I made the decision to attend a conservatory, but I’ll be damned if I know how people do it straight out of high school.  The schedule has been so demanding for so long, now that I have some ‘free time’ (since my last college show is up and running!), I don’t actually know what to do with myself.  My homework is getting done and there are hours left in the day to use however I may choose.  Lately, that has meant naps and movies, mostly, and lemme tell ya, nothing could be sweeter.  

Someone asked me today how I was doing and I replied, without thinking, “I’ve never been better”.  All evening, since that encounter, I’ve marveled at the thought that I’ve never used that phrase before, because I’ve never been this happy with the shape my life has taken.  I still have Plenty of Issues, for sure, but I think I must be learning how to cope with them in healthy, mature ways.  Or something.

Or maybe I’ve gone and grown up.  I’m too old to feel like a kid and too young to be comfortable with the phrase Middle Aged.  I still don’t have the hang of this responsibility thing.  Maybe I should go to grad school, and postpone the inevitable three more years.  

In other news, I love my new job.  It’s frickin awesome…exactly the cooking job I’ve always wanted, the people are tres cool, the food is fresh and delicious and organic and unprocessed, just high brow enough to satisfy a gourmet palate but simple enough to delight the timid eater, the schedule is perfect, and there is a true sense of community involved with being a member of the staff.   Conversation overheard, between a waitress and a busboy:

Busboy: Why don’t any normal looking people eat here?

Waitress:  Cuz no normal looking people work here.  

I feel right at home.  And I feel like a baller.  Landing this job was the equivalent to scoring a spot on the line at Tupelo Honey in Asheville; this restaurant is a local treasure, and I feel so thankful that I’m a part of that now.  The steady paychecks don’t hurt, either.  

I hate to say it but I almost feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I’m so happy, things are going so well…the pessimist in me says it won’t hold.  Just so long as it holds for another 38 days, I can handle the rest.